We have stray named Mama that lives on our patio. A year and a half ago she dug a hole under our shed and had 5 kittens. I fed her during the time she was nursing the kittens, then we trapped the kittens when they were old enough and took them to the animal foundation where they were all spayed/neutered, socialized and then adopted out to homes. A week after the kittens were gone, we trapped Mama cat and took her to a place that does TNR (trap, neuter, return) for the strays in our city. She spent 48 hours recovering in our spare room, then we were told to release her where we trapped her at and she would probably leave since her kittens were gone. Funny thing is that she never left. She sleeps on my patio chairs, and we give her food and water in the tool shed. I tried to make her into an inside cat, but she has no desire to be in my house (just as well as I have 3 inside cats that I have adopted over the years). She now has a few other stray friends that come to eat and sometimes sleep on the other chairs. The ones that have been hanging out with her have all been fixed, I can tell because when they go through the TNR program, the tip of their right ear gets clipped off to mark them as being done.